Two trends in the 2025 SSA data look like opposites. One pool: Mateo, Thiago, Luna, Santiago, Valentina, all growing 6x to 130x in twenty years. The other: Maverick, Waylon, Weston, Brooks, Willow, growing at similar rates from similar starting points.
The conventional read is that two Americas are pulling apart. Latino-coded names on one side, country-coded names on the other, both rising as their demographics grow. Identity sorting visible at the level of the birth certificate.
It's a clean story. It doesn't survive a close look at either pool.
The Thiago question
Thiago grew 130x in twenty years. That's the single most extreme growth rate in the SSA dataset. "Latino names rising" doesn't explain why this name specifically, when other Brazilian-Portuguese names like Lucas, Bruno, and Felipe grew far less in the same window. It also doesn't explain why the spelling Thiago beat Tiago, when Tiago is a common Portuguese form too.
The name tracks two soccer careers. Thiago Silva was named captain of Brazil in 2012, started the 2014 World Cup as captain on home soil, then anchored PSG from 2012 to 2020 and Chelsea from 2020 to 2024. Thiago Alcântara won the Champions League with Bayern in 2020 (against PSG, where Silva was captain, so both Thiagos played in that final). Both spell their names with the Th. The American spelling that took off in the data is the spelling these two players use.
That's not a Latino naming movement. That's two soccer careers shaping which version of a name American parents heard most often.
The Maverick question
Maverick had a small move after the original Top Gun in 1986. The big climb came in the 2010s, with another spike after Top Gun: Maverick in 2022. The name tracks two movies and country radio. It doesn't track a generalized turn toward frontier values.
The other names in that pool don't all share a "country/Western" label either. Brooks isn't a Western name. Weston isn't either. Both are surnames used as first names, the same trend that produced Brody, Hudson, Carter, and Cooper across the 2000s and 2010s. Waylon is a country-music name (Waylon Jennings died in 2002, and the name began climbing later that decade as country revivalists named kids after him). Willow comes from Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith naming their daughter Willow in 2000, not from any frontier aesthetic.
The pool is real. It's a sound category and a media category, not a politics category.
What both pools share
Both lists do the same thing. They give parents a sound that isn't already attached to someone's mom or grandfather. They mark a deliberate choice without being aggressively unusual.
Look at what's falling. Linda, Karen, Patricia, Deborah, Gary, Dennis. The names dropping fastest are the ones that became so closely associated with one specific cohort that parents in 2026 can hear the age the moment the name is spoken. The names rising are the ones that escape that association. Some escape it by drawing from a different cultural pool (Mateo, Luna). Some by reviving a name nobody has used in 80 years (Theodore, Eleanor, Hazel). Some by picking up on a specific media moment (Maverick, Waylon, Kehlani).
The shared impulse is the same: move away from the names that defined the boomer and Gen X years.
What the data shows
The "two Americas" frame predicts cultural sorting. It predicts that each demographic group should be choosing names that mark distance from the other group, with rising polarization visible in name choice. The SSA data doesn't show that pattern. It shows parents across the country making the same kind of choice, drawing on different cultural reservoirs depending on background. The reservoirs differ. The reaching is the same.
That read is harder to summarize than "two Americas, both winning." It also fits the numbers better.
Explore the names: Thiago, Mateo, Maverick, Waylon, Brooks, Willow, Luna.